Remember Dory from Finding Nemo? She had short-term memory loss, which affected everything she did. If you're like me, watching that movie, you really started to feel for Dory...especially because you understood her pain to a certain degree. I've had a bad memory for as long as I can remember...=) Well, I guess it's not terrible...just sort-of selective. Like, I will literally tune people out when they start to talk to me about dates or times of things, birthdays, appointments--really, anything specific I will completely ignore unless I have my calendar in front of me or have a pen and paper in my hand. I will literally stop people if they try to tell me specific things I know they'll expect me to know later if I can't get it in writing right then. And it's not that I'm being rude or stubborn or anything...I just know myself by now, and I know that if I can't visually see something, I will not remember it.
Now, I know you would normally equate a bad memory with not being smart, but I've always done really well in school considering this memory deficiency. That's because, almost without fail, if I see something written down, I will remember it. I always consider myself a good test-taker for this reason. I can remember answers on tests, and it's almost always by visualizing where on the page I read it, or where the answer was in relationship to a picture on the page or how it looked jotted in my notebook. This might be a pretty common thing, but it's seemed to cause me quite a bit of trouble in my life, especially when dealing with people who don't understand my braindicap (I also have a love of combining words, but that's another issue altogether), but also in my spiritual life.
I've had a recent epiphany that being a Christian is both really hard and really simple. See, once you learn the truth about who God is...not who people SAY He is, but who He REALLY is...it's really pretty simple. God created you so He could love you, and so you could love Him. And once the depths of what He went through to prove His love to you really starts to sink in, it's inevitable...you can't HELP but love Him. You trust Him because you know He wouldn't do anything that isn't good for you. You believe in Him, because He starts to speak to you quietly when you listen, and then you start to love Him even more as you learn about who He is...and that's what being a follower of Christ is all about. Simple, right? But here's where things get hard...Remember what I said earlier about my memory? It's bad. If I can't see it, it's really easy for me to forget...in fact, it's inevitable...I'm going to forget.
I recently had a time in my life of just, almost...despair. I wondered to a friend how it was all going to work out. My friend gently reminded me of a post I'd written that talked all about how I knew things would work out because God was in control. Oh. Right! It was a little embarrassing to have to be reminded of something I knew enough to post on my blog. But the truth is that...I forget. I forget that God's in control of my life. I forget that He loves me and wants what's best for me...that the sole purpose in His allowing me to take another breath is so that He can love me and so that I can love Him. I forget that He knows me...He's taking care of me...I can trust Him. It's hard because I can't see it...I can't visualize it...I can't see HIM. But I know it's true.
I used to struggle with the thought that there are so many other religions out there...so many other people claiming they know the truth. I always used to wonder how people would be able to tell the difference between what's true and what's a lie. I know the Bible is true, but the guy sitting next to me on the bus was taught that it's just a book of fairy tales...how will he ever know the truth? I posed this question once to my husband, and I'll never forget what he said. The reason people can tell the truth from the lies is that all of us--whether we believe it or not--were created by God. And God made us in His image. And inside every one of us is some part of God. (I know this is true, because we can't even love God or come to Him without His help.) Similarly, we can't decipher the truth unless we have some truth, some piece of God (the Holy Spirit) in us (all humans) that, when we allow it, helps us see the truth. How is it that there is something in every person that recognizes beauty? We see a beautiful mountain, and we say "beautiful"--and not only that, but a million other people, from any nation, in any language would look at that same mountain and say "beautiful." How are we born with the recognition of beauty? It's built in. How do we know the truth about God being real? It's built in. People know it, whether they want to admit it or not. There is something inside us all, when we allow ourselves to hear the truth, and we are very honest with ourselves, that bears witness with our spirit. We know in our "knower" what the truth is. Now, we can harden our hearts...we can ignore the truth enough times that we no longer see or hear the truth as truth...but it's there nonetheless...
So, I guess the point of this post is to remind myself that God is in control of my life and my circumstances. I just have to remember it...
